How to optimize for featured snippets?

Table of content:

• What are featured snippets?
• Types of Featured snippets:
• How to optimize for featured snippets?

What are featured snippets?

Featured snippets also known as answer boxes, are descriptive snippets which are featured on the top of Google’s organic search results in the box which is usually showing after the ads.

Types of Featured snippets:

3 major types of featured snippets you need to know.

• Paragraph (it’s usually shown the content in the box or content and image in the box )

Paragraph Featured Snippet

• List (here the content display in the form of lists type)

List Featured Snippets

• Table (here the content display in the form of table)

Table Featured Snippets

Why are featured snippets important?

The goal of the featured snippets is answering that user query in the right way like a simple definition to the question. The content that appears in the featured snippet is pulled automatically from the web page. There are 2 main reasons to optimize it for feature snippets:

Higher CTR: Show your website at the top of the serps which leads to getting more clickable. According to search engine land, featured snippets results get 8% of all clicks.

Brand Authority: If your page showing in the featured snippet means you are getting additional brand exposure in the search results. Both end users and Google might consider your website offering relevant information written by industry experts.

How to optimize for featured snippets?

1. Identify the keywords which are ranking in the 1–10 range in the search results.
2. See your user intent.
3. Provide simple answers and content.
4. Monitored featured snippet targets.

1. Choose your keywords:

First you need to identify the keywords which are ranking 1 to 10 in the search results.

Second you need to know for which keyword the featured snippets are showing from the list of keywords you picked, then you need to pick those keywords.

Third, from the list of finalized keywords you need to pick those keywords which are ranking in top 3 to 5, one study found the higher your page ranks, the more likely it is to get a featured snippet.

2. See your user intent

Search for the keyword you are going to try to rank for and see what Google is already showing. Are they showing paragraph, list or table featured snippets based on that you want to mapped the type of content in your page to rank it.

3. Provide simple answers and content

Focus at answering each question briefly

Collect all the relevant list of questions you want to answer, using people also ask from the Google SERPs or using tools like Answerthepublic or semrush. Then answer each question within one paragraph, the reason is Google prefers to feature an answer which was given within one paragraph and the best practice is the average length of featured snippets is 45 words.

4. Monitored featured snippet targets.

Here we need to monitor the rankings for the target keywords and search console data. So what does CTR look like and how are the impressions? Is there any upward trend for the keywords we are targeting?

Then finally you need to set the frequency of monitoring based on the targeting keywords in order to track the positions whether its going up or down. From here you need to repeat the optimization processes like what did I do to make that change? What was the next level optimization to that page to it in the featured snippet? Finally you keep the list of detailed suggestions on what’s working and what’s not.